Naxx clear, Malygos fun, still deliberating.

I'm not allowed to say anything about my jury duty, except that it is continuing. I am not happy about it. I'd like to get back to my normal life. I had a good thing going with this blog every weekday, and now whatever momentum I earned has pretty much been completely sapped. Sigh.

Anywho, a few days after my last post, we waltzed in with capped frost resist (combine the 3 polar pieces with a totem or aura) and killed Sapph in one shot. So I can confirm that even if the fight is perfectly doable without FrR, it becomes downright trivial in comparison once you put the resists on.

Kel'thuzad was pretty much a pushover after that as well. Since we'd only been raiding for like an hour after downing Sapph and KT for the first time, we went to check out Malygos. Malygos is seriously fun. We only did a few attempts on him, but I'm really looking forward to riding a flying disk and a red dragon.

Here's how the fight works:

It takes place on a platform in the middle of outer space, or some mystical approximation thereof. It has 3 phases. During the first phase, Maly will periodically call sparks to him from off to one of the sides of the platform. We need to bunch the DPS up and kill the sparks right on top of them, giving them a damage buff and preventing Maly from getting said buff. The tank has to keep moving the boss around the raid group so that he's always on the opposite side of the raid from the incoming spark. Oh, and he'll also do a vortex, which combines an awesome visual effect with roughly 18,000 damage to each raid member. Oh yeah, and since you are flying around in a vortex, you can only use instant-cast spells. This makes healing during the vortex a tricky affair, though I've heard some suggestions that the vortex can be made trivial if the raid stacks stamina. In phase 2, the raid must hide under protective domes while Maly rains down destruction with the help of his minions. The first catch is that the domes are constantly constricting, forcing the raid to move to a new dome every few seconds. The second catch is that some of his minions are flying high in the sky, out of reach. Luckily, some of his minions ride their hovering discs (coughwarhammercough) down to the group, which we can then commandeer to flying up and bring the fight to their faces, which is where I generally prefer to bring my fights. Phase 3 starts once all of the minions are dead, and it starts with a bang, literally. The platform shatters, sending your group falling into the emptiness of magic-space. Luckily, the red dragonflight is there to catch you, and you perform the final phase on their backs, using a new set of moves rather than your normal abilities.


What's awesome about this fight is the theatricality. The way I just described it, it's actually rather simple to execute once you figure it out and get used to the new mechanics. What makes it fun is the eye candy, the variety, and the set pieces. Everything looks and feels awesome and epic. Every phase requires completely different activities, some of which you may not have even done before (though there is a quest that allows you to practice the dragonriding). And the set pieces: the fight being in outer space, the vortex effect, the flying discs, the exploding platform, the last-minute dragon save, and then the ending, featuring a guest appearance by the queen of the dragons herself...it's all just plain epic. It just goes to show that you can really spice up a game encounter by paying attention to the detail and the feel rather than just the mechanics. It definitely beats the fights where the boss stands in one spot, repetitively wailing on the tank for the entire time.

Another interesting thing to note about this fight (and this is also true of the dragonriding portions of the Oculus instance): No matter how good your group's gear gets, the 3rd phase never gets trivial. Your gear has zero effect on the dragon, so even when we come back in full tier 9, dual-wielding Frostmourne and The Ashbringer, phase 3 Malygos is going to be exactly as difficult as it was the day we were wearing gear from heroics. I'm not sure yet how I feel about it. I do know that now that my gear is far beyond what's needed for heroics, I avoid Oculus like the plague because it's the only place I can't recklessly aoe my way through. Sometimes I play this game for a challenge, and sometimes I'm looking for a way to zone out.

Hopefully I'll be back in full force sooner rather than later.